Pähl Castle

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pähl Castle today

Hochschloss Pähl is an old Bavarian noble seat near Pähl in the Weilheim-Schongau district, about 100 meters above the valley floor of the Ammer and the Ammersee . Today's Hochschloss, a villa in the romantic castle style, was built from 1883 to 1885 according to the plans of the architect Albert Schmidt on the site of older previous buildings. The castle is privately owned and is not open to the public.

history

Romans and Teutons

There are several indications that the area around Pähl was already settled in Roman times. Among other things, a Roman brooch found in the nearby Kerschlach testifies to a larger Roman settlement in the area. This set up at strategic places Burgi , one of which could be clearly seen from the foothills. It cannot be ruled out that such a burgus could have stood on the site of the high castle in the 3rd century.

In the middle of the 5th century, the Romans were ousted by the invasion of Germanic peoples and the Roman fortifications fell into disrepair. The Huosi , to whom the area is still ascribed around 1100, settled in the Weilheim area . According to the story of the 15th century Bavarian chronicler Ulrich Füetrer, Charlemagne , who, according to legend, was born in the Reismühle or Karlsberg Castle near Gauting , spent his youth at Pähl Castle. Efforts to verify this tradition, however, have so far been doomed to failure due to a lack of historical findings.

Andechs counts

In the 12th and 13th centuries Pähl Castle belonged to the Andechs Counts. When and by whom this castle was built is in the dark. The local nobility in Pähl, probably Andechs ministerials , is often mentioned in documents. From these documents it can be concluded that the Counts of Andechs-Wolfratshausen owned the castle, individual goods as well as the rights over the church and the tithe . After the death of Duke Otto VIII of Andechs in 1248, no more Andechs can be identified.

Wittelsbacher

The Wittelsbach family owned an estate in Pähl as early as 1230. When the Andechs died out, the Wittelsbach family took over their possessions. Wolfratshausen Castle fell to them in 1243, Starnberg Castle in 1246. After the death of Otto VIII, Pähl went to the Wittelsbach family as the administrative seat. They set up a land registry at the castle . Duke Otto II appointed his own ministerials as civil servants when taking over this area. An exception was the Andechs judge Ulricus Rufus, who was able to render valuable services to the Wittelsbachers, among other things in questions of property law. They installed him as a district judge and handed over the administration of the district judge to him.

Sketch from 1568

The castle was the center of the court and seat of the district judge, the nurse and the castler . A Kastner was first mentioned in a document in Pähl in 1270. The function of a bailiff was exercised from the castle , the protection of the neighboring monasteries and the administration of the goods took place. Most of the members of the nobility resident in Upper Bavaria appeared as district judges of Pähl. Hans Heseloher , who worked as district and city judge in Weilheim from 1466 to 1483, became more well-known beyond his time . Heseloher, also known as the "belated minstrel ", devoted himself to the arts and created impressive songs and poems.

After two centuries, the Pähl regional court was the traditional property of the Wittelsbach family and the Bavarian duchy . In the years 1466 until his death in 1493, Duke Christoph von Bayern , about whose knightly life many anecdotes have been preserved, received the Pähl Castle as an appanage .

In 1505 Duke Albrecht IV pledged the palace and the Pähl estate to the Augsburg patrician Hans Paumgartner. After this pledge had been redeemed, the seat of the caretaker, the castler and the judge was relocated to Weilheim by 1520 . The Pähl Castle lost its importance because it was only temporarily the official residence of the castle keeper. On January 2, 1578, Duke Albrecht V gave his forage master Caspar Eglof and one of his descendants the care of Pähl for life. In 1618 the ownership rights of the Wittelsbach rulers ended when Duke Maximilian I was no longer interested in Pähl Castle for financial reasons. He left it to Carl Eglof; it was all modified and endowed with the lower jurisdiction as a noble seat .

The high jurisdiction thus ended for Pähl. A presumably in the dungeon befindliches dungeon should be by then come especially for people of the nobility used.

Noble seat of the nobility and the Andechs monastery

Pähl with the high castle before the Thirty Years War

Even before the actual transfer of ownership, which he could obviously count on, Carl Eglof, son of Caspar Eglof and district judge in Landsberg , began to renovate the dilapidated palace complex. However, when farmers found out that the castle had been sold, they refused to deliver building materials. After the judge's death after 1632, the castle fell to his eldest son Johann Wilhelm Eglof, canon at the St. Martini and Kastuli monastery in Landshut. This coincided with the Swedes invading Bavaria in the Thirty Years' War . In the course of this, the castle was badly damaged, plundered several times and devastated by fire.

In January 1660 Canon Eglof left the facility to his sister and brother-in-law Hans Ferdinand von Perfall zu Greifenberg . In 1663, the Lords of Berndorf, who already owned the other two castles and a Hofmark in Pähl, came into possession of the castle. After that it changed hands a few times. Although they were attracted by the impressive location, they did not want to invest in urgent but costly repairs.

In 1690, the Andechs monastery took over the property under Abbot Quirin Wessenauer. However, the monastery was not interested in the castle, but only in the property. It left the castle almost empty, only the Schwaige was in operation. After the castle wall had crumbled in the 17th century, the western part of the castle collapsed at the beginning of the 18th century. The so-called fall tower stood in the middle of ruins. The monastery had the opening closed. From the stones of the collapsed main building, a country house was built for the manager, later referred to as "Schlösschen" or "Schloss".

Secularization and new construction

In the course of secularization , the Andechs monastery was dissolved in 1803 and the property was auctioned. The Hochschloss Pähl complex came into the possession of the district judge and caretaker of Murnau , Aloys Bayerhammer, for 4,375  guilders , after Count Vieregg , who had previously bought it for 5,000 guilders, resigned. Bayerhammer had the main building made habitable and other parts of the building, including the castle chapel, demolished. Around 1833 the complex is described as a ruin again.

The son of Bayerhammer sold the castle property in March 1844 for 21,000 guilders to the lithographer and later court photographer Franz Hanfstaengl . In keeping with the enthusiasm for the Middle Ages that was widespread at the time, he wanted to have the castle expanded into a medieval-romantic castle, similar to what Ludwig Schwanthaler had already done with Schwaneck Castle . He had Gottfried Semper work out appropriate drafts, which, however, could only be partially realized due to the costs. Under Franz Hanfstaengl, the high palace developed into a meeting place for artists and other well-known personalities. The romance of his son Edgar Hanfstaengl with Duchess Sophie in Bavaria , the temporary fiancé of King Ludwig II , who often met in Hohenpähl, also fell during this time . Since the Hanfstaengls kept a guest book, it is well known who of the contemporaries stayed there.

South facade of the main building seen from the Pähler Gorge

Edgar Hanfstaengl took over the property from his father in November 1869 and held it for nine years. Hohenpähl went through Friedrich Martin Schubart in October 1882 to his brother-in-law Ernst Oswald Czermak, a private citizen from Pähl and son of the Leipzig physiologist Johann Nepomuk Czermak . Czermak had the ruins of the old castle demolished as well as the farm buildings that were still habitable and commissioned the Munich architect Albert Schmidt with a new building, which was then completed by 1885. At the same time, the utility buildings, which had previously been on the castle grounds, were rebuilt to the northeast. A pumping station was built in the Pähler Gorge to supply the property with water .

In May 1904 the new high palace was sold to Count Karl Otto von Holnstein . But since his newly wedded wife, Countess Eckbrecht von Dürckheim-Montmartin , née Haniel , who did not agree, the Count sold it to Count Bernhard von Spreti and his wife in August 1904 . In November 1930, their son Rudolf Graf von Spreti became the sole owner of the Pähl Castle. Today Gut and Hochschloss Pähl are owned by his descendants.

In more recent times, the Hochschloss has been used as the setting for various TV crime series. For example, Count Yoster , Derrick and Der Alte have already determined here .

description

Andechs Castle and Pähl Castle (right) in a section of a picture by the master of the Pollinger panels

Hochschloss Pähl lies on a spur facing west, immediately before the ridge between Lake Starnberg and Lake Ammersee drops steeply into the Ammer valley. The Pähler Gorge is located east to south of the palace complex . To the south there is a comprehensive view of the Weilheimer Land , the Ammertal and the Alpine foothills between Werdenfelser Land and Ostallgäu .

middle Ages

No written records are known about the construction and layout of the old ducal castle. What has been preserved, however, is a view from around 1440, which the master of the Pollinger panels recorded in his picture Nativity , which is one of the treasures of the Bavarian State Painting Collection. There is a rather simple medieval building with a free-standing keep and a curtain wall into which a square tower and a round tower are inserted.

Middle part of the Pähler Altar, around 1410

Pähler altar

As usual in medieval castles, there was also a chapel on Hohenpähl that was dedicated to St. George . Soon after the secularization it was canceled. A masterpiece from this, which was initially not even recognized as such, is the Pähler Altar , which is important in art history . Since the artist of this work is not known by name, he is now provisionally given as Master of the Pähler Altar . The Pähler Altar is a three-part folding altar with late Gothic panel paintings. It is 103 centimeters high, the central wing is 68 and the side wings each 28.5 centimeters wide. He is described, especially the crucifixion scene, as "the most delicate and emotionally beautiful representation of this kind and as the purest expression of the new style of German painting around 1400".

Early modern age

Only one sketch is available from 1568, which Philipp Apian or one of his assistants made for the Bavarian country tables.

View from the southeast

present

The neo-gothic High Castle today is a group of buildings with 40 rooms around a landscaped courtyard irregularly. You enter it through a gate tower in the northeast. This is followed by the guest building on the right. Opposite on the south side is the main building with two towers of different heights, the higher of which measures almost 30 meters. An outbuilding in the west contains the remains of the old high castle. Arcades , loggias , dormers and turrets are architectural elements of the building.

The rooms inside are characterized by high-quality materials and a spacious layout. Overall, the castle, which is designed to work from a distance, is described as a “coherent ensemble of late historicism ”.

literature

  • Josef Hemmerle : Hochschloß Pähl, history of an old Bavarian noble residence . Publishing house Bayerische Heimatforschung, Munich-Pasing 1953.
  • Werner Meyer : Castles in Upper Bavaria - A manual . Verlag Weidlich, Würzburg 1986, ISBN 3-8035-1279-4 , p. 265 .
  • Georg Paula , Stefanie Berg-Hobohm : District Weilheim-Schongau (= Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation [Hrsg.]: Monuments in Bavaria . Volume I.23 ). Lipp, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-87490-585-3 , pp. 208-211 .
  • Gerhard Schober: Castles in the Fünfseenland - Bavarian aristocratic seats around Lake Starnberg . Oreos Verlag, 2005, ISBN 3-923657-83-8 , pp. 168-178.
  • Michael W. Weithmann: Inventory of the castles of Upper Bavaria . 3rd revised and expanded edition. Published by the district of Upper Bavaria, Munich 1995, pp. 309–311.

Web links

Commons : Hochschloss Pähl  - Collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Entry on Pähl in the private database “Alle Burgen”.
  2. ↑ Hemmerle p. 9
  3. ↑ Hemmerle p. 15
  4. ^ Parish of Pähl. (No longer available online.) In: Bayerns Gemeinde. House of Bavarian History, formerly the original ; accessed on June 15, 2015 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.hdbg.de  
  5. ^ Michael Weithmann: Inventory of Upper Bavaria's Castles 3rd revised and expanded edition, p. 311
  6. ^ Carl Weishaupt : Bayerische Annalen, Munich 1833, p. 176.
  7. ↑ Schober, p. 175
  8. ↑ Hemmerle p. 86
  9. ↑ Schober p. 178

Coordinates: 47 ° 54 ′ 38 "  N , 11 ° 11 ′ 0"  E